国际英语新闻：IMF says global recovery continues advancing with uneven pace, downside risks

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday upwardly revised its projection of world output growth to 4.4 percent for this year, but warned that a two-speed recovery would continue.

The latest world output forecast was 0.2 percentage points higher compared with the IMF's prediction in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released in October 2010.

"This reflects stronger-than-expected activity in the second half of 2010 as well as new policy initiatives in the United States that will boost activity this year," the IMF said in the updates to the WEO report on Tuesday.

However, the Washington-based agency held that downside risks to the recovery still remained. The most urgent requirements for robust recovery were comprehensive and rapid actions to overcome sovereign and financial troubles in the euro area and policies to redress fiscal imbalances and to repair and reform financial systems in advanced economies more generally.

"In advanced economies, activity has moderated less than expected, but growth remains subdued. Unemployment is still high, and renewed stresses in the euro area periphery are contributing to downside risks," noted the Tuesday report.

In many emerging economies, activity remained buoyant, inflation pressures were emerging, and there were some signs of overheating, driven in part by strong capital inflows, according to the report.

The IMF predicted that the output in advanced economies would gain 2.5 percent this year, 0.3 percentage points higher than its prediction in October 2010, while the output in developing economies would surge 6.5 percent this year, 0.1 percentage point higher than its October forecast.

The IMF forecast that China's economy would expand by 9.6 percent and 9.5 percent in 2011 and 2012, respectively, both in line with its earlier predictions in October 2010.